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Soliciting Feedback
I’ve recently posted the new Manga 500 for this past week, now the fourth week in a row.
I make no guarantees (my New Year’s Resolution is still to post nothing to the blog) but in an effort to both streamline the process and make the charts more user-friendly, I’m asking for feedback from my readers.
Given the typical response I get from a call like this one, you will in fact be one of only three, possibly two, people to actually tell me what they want, so hells yes your opinion will matter.
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I’ve noted that in an effort to place the charts in context (and to couch matters in what has become our trademark casual/conversational writing style) I’m adding an extra 8-10 paragraphs each week of explanation/snark/excuses to what essentially are just numbers posts.
It’s fine for what it is, and I’ll happily cut and paste the same three sentences on methodology over and over again for the next year, but it occurs to me that I could peel a goodly chunk of exposition off of the posts and put it in a proper FAQ document and we’d likely all be better off for it.
What I’d like from you, my pair of dedicated readers (and whomever else might care to chime in) are answers (or comments, or requests for clarification) on the following three points:
1. Do you like the current 4-way post, or would you prefer a single, all-inclusive, really long numbers post?
2. Shall I preserve the current posting regimen, but add an ‘Executive Summary’ post (i.e. top 10 volumes, top 10 series, top 5 publishers, and the top 25 from the Midlist 500) to facilitate linking from other blogs?
Any summary would of course include links to all the rest; my thought was to save time & effort for others doing me the favour of a link. And points 1&2 could be combined, in fact — I think I remember enough html to make proper use of anchor tags. If no one comments, then things will proceed ‘as is’ for quite a few months yet, if only to play merry hell with the search engine rankings for a while. …But I did say three points, didn’t I? So:
3. Open Essay Question: ask me anything.
Honestly, anything. Since I plan to take the intro and endnotes off of the numbers to constitute a new content page, which in deference to a decade and a half of internet tradition will of course be a FAQ though the ‘questions’ are neither ‘frequent’ nor have they, in a technical sense, ever actually been asked, it occurs to me that the new FAQ[sic] is a great opportunity to solicit actual questions.
So Ask.
Responses to all inquiries will be attempted, either most seriously or in the spirit of the petitioner. The nominal topic is the Manga Sales Rankings posts but any topic covered to date on the blog is fair game. –I’ll take a stab at anything else, as well, but be forewarned: I’m a pantheistic syncreticist academic with a odd knack for remembering trivia, a background in both physics and architecture (and so, with a glancing knowledge of art), a personal interest in both history and mythology, access to not only wikipedia but also the volumes of the 2,200m² bookstore at which I work, and as numerous key witnesses will attest to: I’ve forgotten more about beer than the rest of you will ever know.
So ask sarcastic questions at your own peril; I can likely come up with a serious response.
[I predict exactly zero responses to this call-to-arms, and I’ll be left on my own, again, attempting to predict exactly what it is you people want. *sigh*. but I thought the attempt should be made.]
Add your question to the comments, or email mblind [at] comicsnob [dot] com.
Posted by Matt Blind on April 14th, 2008
under rankings, commentary.
Comments
Comment from Ian
Time: April 15, 2008, 3:21 am
Sorry if I’m ruining your prediction of zero feedback, but I have a suggestion.
I check out your rankings semi-regular and I’d always wondered how the numbers would match up to their sales performance in Japan.
I’d like to see a comparision of how the top sellers in North America do (or did) in Japan, and vise versa maybe.
For example, “Vagabond” by Inoue Takehiko is my favorite Japanese comic, but it doesn’t do very well in North America at all. “One Piece” (although not one of my favorites) is massive in Japan but hardly made a dent in the U.S. (I think the anime even got cancelled on Cartoon Network).
I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but maybe there are a few that are nothing in Japan but did well in the U.S., similar to the “Puffy Ami Yumi” cartoon, which would never have been made in Japan because they are has-beens in the pop world.
Maybe some mediocre manga that’s forgotten about in Japan is doing relatively well over there?
I haven’t worked out how you’d make comparisions and based on what criteria (I thought you might be better at working that out than I would), but that’s something I’d like to see.
I don’t know if you are interested in that sort of thing, but just thought I’d suggest it.
Cheers.
Comment from Glenn Kardy
Time: April 15, 2008, 4:17 am
We’ve been watching your lists with great interest here at Japanime/Manga University. We think what you’re attempting is wonderful, and hope you will continue your efforts.
Answer to question #1: We feel a single, long list is always the easiest to digest.
Answer to question #2: An executive summary would be great — the more info and feedback, the better!
And, #3 (our open-essay question): We wonder why our imprint’s two most popular titles — “Manga Moods” and “The Manga Cookbook” — fail to make your lists, while our “Kanji de Manga Vol. 1″ is on the list week after week.
“Manga Moods” and “The Manga Cookbook” outsell “Kanji de Manga” by about 3-to-1 (according to the data we receive from our distributor and Nielsen Bookscan). And “Kana de Manga” (one of 7 volumes in the “Kanji de Manga” series) sells just as many copies as “Kanji de Manga Vol. 1″ but also never shows up on your lists.
Just curious — and hopeful!
Thanks,
Glenn
Comment from Matt Blind
Time: April 15, 2008, 6:47 am
Ian:
Direct comparisons to Japanese sales are difficult because I don’t read Japanese (yet; working on it ) and I haven’t seen a weekly sales ranking past a top 10 (which the kind folks at ComiPress translate and post for us on Wed/Thur of each week)
The obvious answer to items popular in the states that wouldn’t make a blip in Japan are the Warrior books based on the teen/YA novels of Erin Hunter — but that’s not really what you’re asking. Is there a series that is mediocre in Japan that we eat up with a spoon in America? Maybe yes, but don’t tell the yanks or they’ll stop reading it.
(most of them are teens, after all, and ‘trendy in Japan’ is actually a selling point)
I’ll research the issue and see what I come up with. It may be three to four weeks before I can answer your question, and the scope is broad enough that I will likely make it the commentary post for that week, or a stand-alone column
aside: One Piece was canceled because even though the show is pretty good in Japanese, there were edits and some other problems with localization that burdened the American version. Funimation has picked that one up after 4Kids dropped it, and I’m sure the new version is much better — I don’t know if it made its way back on to TV sets, though. And Puffy Ami Yumi shouldn’t have been made here in the States, either.
Comment from Matt Blind
Time: April 15, 2008, 7:39 am
Glenn:
The persistence of Kanji de Manga vol 1 on the charts has an easy explanation, one I almost don’t have to reference the spreadsheet for: bn.com
At bn.com, Kanji 1 comes in at ~#100 in their manga category this past week - a mark that it hits fairly consistently week-to-week, in fact. It’s number 103 this morning:
http://browse.barnesandnoble.com/browse/nav.asp?No=100&N=989444&Ne=989444&visgrp=fiction
I usually only look at the first 300 titles from any source but last week I just happened to load up a top 500 manga from B&N on April the 10th (I *might* be looking to expand my source data) and the Kanji de Manga box set was #338 in the manga category at that time.
As one of my actual-bookstore-sources, and a big one at that, bn.com is checked three times a week, so the solid perfomance of Kanji 1 week to week has a cumulative effect that may be distorting, when compared to actual sales numbers.
Here are some sales rankings (compared to all books, not just manga) to put things in perspective:
Kanji de Manga 1
B&N: 17,961
Amazon: 235,461
-
Kana de Manga
B&N: 21,906
Amazon: 162,519
-
Kanji de Manga vols 1-3 box
B&N: 55,979
Amazon: 371,204
-
Manga Cookbook
B&N: 75,850
Amazon: 36,491
-
Manga Moods
B&N: 303,583
Amazon: 253,940
-
Manga Sisters
B&N: 367,916
Amazon: 567,703
-
50 Things We Love about Japan
B&N: 746,418
Amazon: 761,723
-
(similar data isn’t available from borders.com yet)
It looks like Kana de Manga might/should show up occasionally in my Manga 500 as well, except…
at bn.com, Kana de Manga isn’t in any category at all — Manga or otherwise. Additionally, Manga Moods appears to be classed as just a Graphic Novel, not specifically manga (w/ art technique as a secondary). If B&N has a mechanism for publishers to request/submit corrections to title information, you might persue that.
By sales rank, Kana de manga should be doing about as well as Kanji 1, but since it’s in the wrong category it never comes up on my b&n source charts.
Japanime titles also occasionally appear on source charts from Chapters and Buy.com, but not other sales sites.
Additionally, it looks like the Cookbook is doing much better at Amazon than at B&N. Since Amazon uses some weird keyword thing as opposed to actual categories there shouldn’t be a classification problem like that discovered for the Kana de Manga title. (The Manga Cookbook *is* classed as manga at bn.com, though, so no worries there)
Here are my rankings from Sunday
252. ↓-1 (251) : Kanji de Manga 1 - Japanime’s Manga University, Jan 2005 [121.5] ::
568. ↑3 (571) : Manga Cookbook - Japanime’s Manga University, Aug 2007 [27.8] ::
660. ↑20 (680) : Manga Moods - Japanime’s Manga University, Dec 1899 [19.8] ::
659. ↓-168 (491) : Kanji de Manga vols 1-3 box set - Japanime’s Manga University, Nov 2006 [19.9] ::
1270. ↑new (0) : Kanji de Manga Kana de Manga Special Edition: Japanese Sound FX - , Dec 1899 [0.6] ::
The Manga Cookbook misses the main chart but does rank #456 on the Midlist 500.
final note: I don’t have Neilsen BookScan numbers, and likely never will. I rely on sales ‘charts’ (comparitive rankings) to try and estimate how manga titles are doing compared to each other. And my source data is rankings based on online sales — just a fraction of the total sales, and one that may vary as a percentage of total sales by quite a bit, from publisher to publisher and even from title to title. Another source of errors are the sites themselves: ‘bestseller’ rankings may reflect historical performance in addition to actual current sales — I don’t know how long of a time frame each site considers, and the bestseller ‘formula’ used will also be different for each site.
.
To Answer Your Question:
Manga Moods and the Manga Cookbook are selling much better in stores than they appear to be doing on-line. It’s a tough problem to have, I know, but I’m sure you guys will cope somehow. 
Though… The Manga Cookbook *might* just be ready for a push, up and over that curb, if you can think of a way to promote it.
Comment from Glenn Kardy
Time: April 15, 2008, 8:31 am
Matt…
Great answer and info — thanks for taking the time to explain it so well!
If there’s anything we can do at MU to help spread the word about the work your doing, please let me know!
Cheers,
Glenn
Comment from Ian
Time: April 15, 2008, 7:29 pm
Thanks for the response.
I can see the difficulty in doing a comparison regularly and I think a stand-alone post would ruin you New Year’s Resolution (it is only April, after all).
A commentary sometime would be great.
I don’t think I’d be the only one who’d like to read what you have to say on that.
And I agree that the Puffy cartoon should never have been made… Anywhere! 
Didn’t know Funimation picked up Once Piece, though. I hope they can revive it. 4kids is only interesting in merchandizing and Al Khan thinks “Japan is over” anyway.
(As far as his interests are concerned, he’s probably right, though - at least for the foreseeable future).
Cheers
Pingback from comicsnob.com » Vampires vs. Alchemists, vs. the Numbers
Time: April 20, 2008, 2:51 pm
[…] I know you folks don’t bother to read comments, or any of my posts for that matter unless a kind friend of the blog happens to post a link, so I’ll take it as a given that you missed the discussion & commentary on last Monday’s article “Soliciting Feedback“. As might be guessed from the title, I was looking for a few opinions on how the rankings looked to my intended audience, and if any changes in format were needed or wanted in the name of clarity. […]
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